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I was going to write a post here about who I would have sacked before Katich. Then it got serious. Then it got wordy. Then I uploaded it at Spin.

After I wrote it, I went and listened to Simon Katich’s 20 minute press conference.

Katich speaks far more eloquently than he ever batted. However, like his batting, it’s the counter attacking that is what’s best about this.

When he says, “I know how they operate” that’s a dig at Cricket Australia being cowardly, opportunistic and slimey, but he doesn’t call them any of that. It’s subtle, but far better than any of his awkward nudges to the legside.

Then he says that Sachin Tendulkar was written off a few years ago by one of our selectors. Wow. Grag Chappell is now in hospital getting Katich’s foot removed from his ass.

There’s obviously more on the selectors, because he has just been dropped and he is clever and articulate enough to savage them quite well. Because it’s on the selectors where this could come off as a what about me douchjuice, that he doesn’t is a work of art, 17 men squad, part timers and the spinning carousel make this a wonderful effort. The way he spreads the love so it’s not just about him as a work of art.

You could imagine some players with Katich’s past coming out and stating that Michael Clarke was involved because of the old sing sing choke choke situation from a few years ago. Katich could have used that, but no, he’d rather deflect that and let others think about it.

I don’t agree with everything he says, especially when it’s that Australian cricket selection has always been about performance at shield level. That wasn’t the case for Steve Waugh, Ian Healy, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath or Michael Clarke’s selection who were all picked on potential.

But that’s the good thing, you can disagree with his points and be of the opinion that he should have been dropped, but you can’t argue that he has exposed Cricket Australia’s lower points that they often pretend aren’t a problem.

King James Sutherland has already disagreed with some of this, but you can’t spin what Katich has said, because the people are on his side and in his press conference he didn’t make the mistakes that most players do.

People have called his comments angry, and they are, but this isn’t some rant, the man sounds calm and calculated, which is like how he batted, and all of this make his comments all the more trustworthy.

Cricket Australia have been cut open beautifully by Katich, which is ironic, but he never played a beautiful shot on the field.

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There was once a time when Simon Katich choked Michael Clarke for not celebrating a win long enough.

Now he has been told he is not required or good enough to get into the list of best 25 cricketers in the country.

According to some media outlets, he’s angry.

I bet he is.

I imagine he has made a list, and those on that list will be dealt with in an ugly yet effective way.

Simon Katich’s death list may never be found, but in the next few weeks we may start hearing stories like this.

David – found naked in a bathtub having been force fed 52 cans of beer, still in the can. Boon’s body is a lumpy mess, and his moustache has been carved off his face with a knife.

Jamie Cox – a corpse is found in a local men’s hairdressers having been stabbed with tiny blunt scissors over 18614 times. It doesn’t make the national news.

Andrew – a transsexual prostitute corpse is found in a lawfirm office, it’s been strangled, or shot, no one is sure, and the story keeps changing.

Greg – the head of a man is found, near by is a wide bring hat with razors on the brim.

Michael – the body of a man is found at a trendy cafe on a sydney beach, it’s quite clear to officials that it’s been choked by an Australian flag.

Personally I think Katich should have been dropped, but if I ever meet him or have any contact with him at all I’ll tell him that his dropping was the biggest mistake I’ve seen by Australian selectors, then I’d buy him a beer and tell him how I used to troll some cricket blog who used to make fun of him.

The world will end tomorrow, or today, or a few days ago depending on when you read this (that’s a trick line, because you’ll already be dead).

It’s rapture time. Or as these particular weird fucked up group of bible masturbators say, “Blow the trumpet, warn the people!” Which sounds like you are warning people before you fellate them.

The nut in charge has predicted the coming of a second Jesus before, and got it wrong. So he’s due.

And what does this mean?

The Christian Fundamentalist God loves India.

Perhaps because of Sachin, or even Sehwagology. Perhaps God was holding off hoping Americans would stop fighting over birth certificates and creating laugh track TV shows long enough to become the best team in the world, and when he saw that wouldn’t happen, he merely picked the new America, India.

We’ll never know for sure, as we aint going upstairs to get a meeting with the Male Homophobic Christian Fundamentalist God. We’re all dirty sinners here; you’re probably masturbating right now, or applying peanut butter and calling your dog.

While you do that, God has chosen the first time in human history that India are the best side in cricket to end the world. Perhaps Sehwag’s batting really did cause the apocalypse?

After May 21 they may not be. Players retire, get injured, lose form or sleep with the coach’s wife, but right now India are the best, and they’re going out as number one.

Sure, we may be able to play cricket in hell, but you just know they’ll be nothing in the pitches for bowlers. And can cricket really survive with a fourth version of cricket, Dante cricket?

Ofcourse, cricket (and less so the world) ending now is not all good news.

We’ll never Simon Katich knife Michael Clarke after he runs him out.

The Hashim Amla sex tapes will remain unwatched.

Runako Morton will never scream can you dig it at a baying crowd of street thugs in matching outfits in his unofficial role as king of the gangs.

The leader of the UN will never be Kumar Sangakkara, and he’ll never be rich enough to own the rights to the back catalogue of Billy Ocean or Hank Williams.

The cyborg that Martin Crowe created (just because he had a spare Sunday afternoon) to hold his brain will never get a chance to take 5000 test wickets.

It’s a shame because the world would have loved Mushtafiqur Rahim’s novelty dub hit, “I should be so Lucky”.

Salman Butt doesn’t have the chance to find Jesus, become popular on a celebrity dancing show or rebuild his name by getting cancer.

England will never get a chance to see Graeme Swann hosting retro 1950s game shows.

It ends all hopes that Kevin O’Brien did of doing something that people remember him by without stupid hair.

And the UDRS will always remain shit.

What will happen is that India will remain the eternal champions of the world as we all burn in the Christian Fundamentalist Hell.

The real shame is not that we’ll miss the stuff above or that India are number 1 for ever (which isn’t a shame if you’re Indian, although you’ll be in hell, so hard to celebrate too much) it’s that we all know Tony Greig will be down there commenting on all our torture. Blow by blow. Getting the details wrong, calling Sri Lankans little, talking about the broad shoulders of some blonde 19 year old, and generally making hell, hell.

Last Ashes, I came up with a 100 Ashes facts. Since then I have written a book about the Ashes, I feel a special bond with this series. Now I have Ashes premonitions.

During the series the words stubborn, curmudgeon, phlegmatic, resigned, dour and sourpuss will be used to explain Simon Katich and Jonathan Trott when batting. The problem is, both of these men want to be known as more dour than the other.

After a gentleman’s agreement, they decide on having a boxing match to see who is the dourest of them all.

They book a gym, say publically that all proceeds are going to charity and decide on it being a knockout or die fight.

The first four rounds Trott looks like he is warming up, while Katich’s strange stance puts him off. Eventually a punch is thrown in round five, and from there both men dance around each other a lot, and try and work over the body.

Neither player ever throws a haymaker, or even a punch at the head, they just keep it tight at the body.

There is a lot of clinching from the 8th round on, with no referee, some whole rounds are just them hugging and wrestling.

12 rounds in, people start to leave.

The boxing doesn’t change, Katich gets annoyed that Trott isn’t always ready when the bell rings, and Trott can’t work out how to get through Katich’s tight weird defence.

During round 32 a Katich punch skids off Trott’s smooth chest and cops him in the jaw, he then takes a few seconds out to get himself back right, he does and they continue.

In the 41st Katich’s footwork gets him in trouble and he lunges past Trott and ends up getting his chest hairs caught in the rope.

By the 47th round, most of the spectators left there are sleeping or watching youtube videos of lolcats.

In the 52nd it is just Trott and Katich in the gym.

Both men come out of their corner, both tired, but still trying to out dour each other. They fall into an embrace, and the wrestling quickly turns into something more sexual, and they both realise that they have so much in common that fighting is not for them. They start to kiss, which quickly leads to passionate, awkward, slow love in the ring.

The next day they announce that the fight was a draw, as both men had withdrawn at the same time.

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Billy Bowden is perhaps the most amazing umpire in cricket history. With little umpiring skill at all he has managed to make it to the pinnacle of cricket with stupid gestures and nerd chic.

If umpires were under the same scrutiny from selectors as cricketers are, he probably would find himself umpiring cricket games in Queenstown during the winter.

Instead he is propelled into the test arena to ensure that we all have someone to laugh at. Like, Pauley Shore. The problem is, the laughs stopped about 10 tests in, and now what you have is cricket’s own bio-dome being replayed endlessly.

Even when Billy is in form, he never looks that confident. Today was not a day of form.

On a day when India and Australia put on a gourmet day of cricket, Billy took a shit on the buffet.

First was the Michael Clarke dismissal, or not. A simple caught at midwicket turned into a soap opera as Billy couldn’t decide if it was a no ball or not.

Then one of two scenarios played out:

Enter the KRUD (Katich Review of Umpiring Decisions). The newest innovation by the ICC to steam line the UDRS system. With Katich in place, no umpire ever needs to feel uncertain again as Katich can tell them what they need to know. Even if – upon watching the replay many times – it appears that he is not watching the crease. When signalling a KRUD you should choke yourself in the direction of the 3rd umpire.

Billy saw what he thought was a no ball, but then got caught up in the game and suddenly realised he hadn’t called it.

Neither scenario shows him in good light.

Later on Billy decided to intervene again when Ishant Sharma appealed for a leg before and Billy seemed to be deciding if it was out or not, but then called it a no ball several long seconds later. When the ball was bowled, there is no audible call.

Now, this seems simple enough, it is either a no ball, and therefore needs no deciding, or it is not a no ball, and you can give your decision.

As it turned out the ball pitched a fraction outside leg stump, not that Billy ever made a decision about that.

That one got worse when Billy’s no ball decision was just wrong. Late, wrong and nervy, just what we want from an umpire.

Somewhere in there he made an excellent decision for a caught behind, but people knew he was just building the drama for later on. No one took it serious. “Oh, that Billy, what a jokester”.

The final act was just for Indian fans, a personal message of gratitude. It was a tough one, and against the flow of no balls, a surprise ending, but giving Gotham City Gambhir out for dragging a ball from well wide of off stump back onto his pads was just about perfect.

It was the perfect end to his day.

And, hopefully his career.

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That the Krab has a career at all is testament to the human spirit and proof that appearances do not matter. Katich’s early career was mostly shit. Then he went off and made his technique even more unwatchable. Some thought this meant he should be stood on by a giant boot, but that ridiculously ugly technique seems to work for modern Test Cricket. Has now made himself into one of the few grizzled opening batsmen in world cricket. Still fucks up close to hundreds a lot. His popularity levels tripled at around the same point Michael Clarke’s throat was grabbed.

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I know Indian fans have been waiting a while for me to say this, but County Cricket is a cruel tyrant here to ruin the game of cricket.

How? Oh, I’ll tell you, but robbing us of arguably the ugliest spectacle of all time, but also giving just a taste of what could have been.

It all started when Lancashire’s latest gun recruit, the one the only King Kumar, had to pull out of their season due to other commitments. Knowing that there is no one human being who can replace Kumar’s cool easy elegance with bat, Lancs replaced him with two men.

Now that County Cricket only allows 1 international player (and 9 kolpaks) at any one time, the two replacement players were hired to fill in at different times in the season.

The players are, Simon the Krab Katich and Shivnarine the Chrab Chanderpaul.

On their own these are two men who scuttle and accumulate as good as any, but together, they could create a new super breed of cricketers.

Batsmen who play with such ugly and unconventional techniques that bowling them out would be more luck than design. Ugliness would be the new black.

Watching them together would revolutionize English cricket, batsmen would no longer be taught to play according to the Lord’s play book. They would be taught using the new crablike demeanors.

Young children would be given black tape for under their eyes before each innings. Three balls in they would be encouraged to dive into the crease and not wipe the dirt off. They would start to face square leg when the bowler came in. The inside edge squirt to back ward sqaure leg would become the scoring shot of choice. And all English batsmen would show the bowler leg stump as they scuttled across the crease to protect the corridor.

Shiv and Katich would inspire more young English players than Freddie, Ramps and Mushtaq combined. Their tandem crabbing could move England to number one in the world test rankings. Australia, India and South Africa would start sending cricketers to England just to study this new crabbing technioque that was under their eyes for years while they were watching Mark Waugh and VVS Laxman.

But County Cricket is denying their country this technology by not teaming up this super ugly team. Instead Shiv shall Chrab a bit, then Kat will Krab a bit, and young English children will never know that right in front of their eyes was a technique that could have made them a future English Cricketer. Because as well all know, one cricketer scuttling around the crease is not going to start any revolution.

Thanks, County Cricket, way to ruin these potential future crabs’ dreams.

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Happy Jesus on a stick day. A day that is all about honouring someone who died so that we can all be perverts and animals, but you can’t eat steak, in case some is made of him.

In honour of Jesus dying I’ve compiled an XI of players who died, and were then reborn, or you know, other Christian type shit. Jesus, as we all know, was a wicket keeper.

S Katich – Found himself in a cricket career cave due to some horrific test form, but then his God, Bob Simpson, helped him, and thankfully we now have Katich shuttling around the crease for days on end.

M Sinclair – Impossible as it is to enjoy the way he plays, Sinclair is the one cricketer most likely to survive Sodom and Gomorrah. When the Kiwis are having a selectorial apocalypse, it is Sinclair they turn to. He will always live with us.

I Bell – If Bell truly was the son of God, Christianity would have died out by now. Instead Bell seems ordained by some higher power, perhaps Murdoch, to play the number 3 position for England. He coveted it while he had to wait out Pestilence (Shah), War (Bopara) and Famine (Trott) but he found his way back to number three.

M Hussey – Has never left heavenly earth, but what exactly was he doing between the age of 12 and 30.

K Pietersen – An outcast with his old religion he became the father, son and holy bail of a new one. It still hasn’t been smooth sailing, but he no longer has to bowl off spin, so that is good.

K Akmal – Crucified on the pitch for one of the most heretical displays of wicket keeping ever written about. But he will be back, you can’t keep a Pakistani cricketer away for too long. Even if he comes back as a kolpak.

N Hauritz – Outbowled by M Clarke and then shunned by his country, his state, and his knew state. One day four wise men decided to pick him up from the gutter he found himself in, and bugger me if he hasn’t stayed around since then.

S Bond – Needed to go on a spiritual adventure to India so that one day he could come back to New Zealand and tell them he was available for white ball games and then continued his spiritual adventure in India.

A Mendis – The man is full of mystery, but once you work it out, it is all kind of simple and you don’t really care anymore.

A Nehra – From a world cup final to the great abyss, but thanks to Lalit K, Nehra has been brought back so that we can all pray at his long limbs and permanent angry face.

J Patel (12th) – Is so good at being 12th man I couldn’t see why he wouldn’t do it for Jesus.

Had Simon Katich been born in New Zealand his whole career would make more sense.

An intelligent man with permanent three day growth, a batting technique that is rough on the eyes, some years in the wilderness, a failed career as a wrist spinner, and someone who struggles to convert fittys into hundreds.

Katich is a perpetual struggler.

Even when he is going well.

His career would be perfect for New Zealand, in almost any era.

Without him on the first day of the test Australia would have collapsed for a far more embarrassing total. Again.

Katich is making a habit out of making runs when no one else in the Australian team does. He is like Michael Clarke if Michael Clarke’s technique was burnt in a vat of acid and he had to prove himself in every test.

In a team with one champion and a few great front runners, Katich sticks out.

The only other batsman Australia has who is willing to play ugly is his partner in grime, Michael Hussey.

Since the start of ’09 the Krab has been averaging a very solid 52 while making 3 hundreds and 10 fittys.

In his career, 12 times he has made between 75 and 99, only once was he not out. In that time he has only made 6 scores in the 20s.

These are all important stats. I am not sure what they mean, but whatever they mean, they mean a lot of it.

Katich averages 76 against the kiwis, maybe because he feels a deep spiritual bond with them.

This collapse has continued Australia’s run of getting bowled out at least once per series for less than 250, that run starts at the Bastard Monkey series of 07/08.

That deserves some applause. Ofcourse I could be wrong, I used all my research on Simon Katich.

Dictator Dan took wickets, but the rest of the media might mention that.